♪ tonight on kqed "newsroom," demanlds for the president's ta returns and subpoenas of former aides are leading to bettitter fights. sso a controversite bill passed a key hurdle this week as lawmakers weighed measures to tackle t housing crisis. and after thousands of performances in front of millions a bay area icon at's the world's longest musical review says good-bye. nd hello welcome to kqedo "new." we begin with a flurry of action this week in the nation's capital. white house lawyers have signalled they plan tofiell former als including don mcgahn to not comply with subpoenas for their testimony. the subpoenas came as house mocrats expanded their

investigations of president trump following the release of the muelr report. and on tuesday treasury secretary steve mnuchin once again missed a deadline to turn over the president's tax returns while awaiting guidance from the justice department. here now to share his perspective on this and other political matterss silicon valley congssman row canna. the trump administration is making clear that it pns to defy every single investigation that house democrats throw his way. how are you planning to fight this and get the information you're seeking witut letting this drag on for months possibly? >> first of all, it's very unfortunate and it's unprecedented. every white house fights with congress but this white house is not giving us a single document. they're not allowing a single aide to testify. i think hillary clinton's op-ed recently is instrucgve. dur watergate sam irwin threatened to have the sergeant of arms go after folks who

weren't testifying. we will hold these fol contempt and go to the courts to enforce the basic separation of powers. >> several members of congress including jarred huffman and maxine waters are calling for impeachment. where do you stand? >> i'm where nancy elosi and hillary clinton are. let's have the committees do their work. let's have p like bob mueller and don mcgahn testify whether i be on live television and build a case for the american people first. abraham lincoln said public sentiment is everything. we have to carry the american people with and we first have to let the committees do their work. >> dora demic lawmakers like jarred huffman have a point when they say that p there'senty in the mueller report to show obstruction of justice and if you don't impeach now, you are not upholding your linstitutional responsiy. but rather instead letting political calculations dictatei process. do lawmakers on the democratic side who hold this point of view have a point?

>> no one wants politi to ctate this. there's not going to be some poll thatdetermines whether we should impeach or not but i think the responsility is to be deliberative and let the process play out. we just got the mller port. we shouldn't rush to judgment. we should have the hearings and see wherehe facts lead and have the testimonies. that's the process followed with watergate. there was a year and a half o testimony in front of committees before a decision was made. n't follow cans d that process with clinton and most people feel that that as impeachmentpremature. i think having a process and seeing where the facts lead is the most responsible way of fulfilling our obligation to the constitution. >> meanwhile the threat of russian meddling just today fbi director chris wray called russia's medicaling in the u.s. eltion process a significant counter intelligence threat. he says they're campaigning 365 ys a year to be disruptive to our process.r earl in the week jared

kushner dismissed russian election hacking basically saying it's, quote, ma e a couple cebook ads. if you have a situation where the white house is dismissing e threat, how confident can we be that our 2020 elections, the integrity of that will be safe from foreign interference? >> chris wray is absolutely right. the mueller reportcoluded that there was sweeping and systemic russian hiterference. wasn't just a couple facebook ads. the russians hack intoounty governments, into state governments, into former secretaries of state and we remain vulnerable to interference not just from russia but from many foreign powers. that's why i've btrying to ipartisan basis with kevin mccarthy to do something to improve the coordinenion bet law enforcement and tech platforms to make sure we aren't vulnerable tohese kind of cyber attacks. >> how are you and kevin mccarthy g to attack this? >> we need legislation that gives greater resources for

enforcement to cooperate with tech companies and that has greater accountability for tech companies to eliminate possible foreign agents or bots on their platforms. we need real guidelines. i have an op-ed i publish that goes through three or four very concrete steps of what tech companies can do to cooperate with law enforcement. >> what are some o the steps? >> the first step would be that we need greater fundi for law enforcement to work with techs so there's a common platform which allech companies participate in. if there's a russian agent on one platform, everyone can remige that. now there's not that coordination. a second step would be that campaigns need to get security training from law enforcement agencies so they're not vulnerable to the type of hacks that john podesta was vulrable to wi the clinton campaign. >> let's talk about the 2020 presidential races. while you're cochair of bernie sanders campaign,r he's of c

running for president in 2020. yet you represent a district that's home to companies like apple and google, home to some of the biggest billionaires in the world, the type that bernie sanders likes to criticize. so what is it about bernie sanders that has made you become such a strong backer? >> i'm very proud of aot of the tech companies in my district and thei ovation. but i see the income divide not just in the country but in my own district. the economic opportunities of theigital revolution have to be open to everyone. i worked with senator sanders we worked together to force amazon to give folks a $15 minimum wage. i'm proud of that work. what i want to see is greater equity for every american to have the rewards of the digital economy. >> joe biden kicked off his presidenti bid yet, making it now 20 democrats vying for the presidency. crowded field. hat do you think a democrat

needs to do to really stand out from that pack and beat trump in 2020 and appeal to voters, whethert's in peoria or palo alto? >> we have to understand one of the bigge divides in this country is the rural/urban divide.na unforly donald trump won 400 out of 500 counties in this country. we have to offer a vision rural communities. many rural communities are communities of color. how are the going to participate in the jobs of the future, how are they goi to be able to make good wages while staying in ese communit they grew up in? i have been going to help create jobs in those communities. i think that type of message will appeal to communities that feel left out. >> do you thinkthere's a risk here? because you touch on very much kitchen bread a butter issues. do you think there is a risk here that if democrats keep on hammering away at the mueller

investigation and additionalin stigations of president trump that this is really going to get lost and you're hampering your own chances coming into 2020? >> it's a fine balancing act. we ha two responsibilities. we have to talk about health care, jobs, education, what are we gochng tove for the american people, how are we going to help communities thef have been out. but we have a constitutional obligation to hold the president can believe accountable. we've passed sweeping gun legislation, we've passed sweeping campaign finance reform. they happened to happen on days that michael cohen was testifying or paul manafo was sentenced and they don't break through. house democrats have toigure t how to break through in the media cycle to our positive agenda. >> always a pleasure to have you here with us. i always appreciate the opportunity. on wednesday a controversial bill that requires some cities oand cunties to build more housing near transit centers cleared a key committee in the

state legislature. state assembly member buffy wicks from oakland has introduced several housingea res including one that would require landlords to rt annually re evictions here now to talkbout house ing are my guests. you proposed three housing bills that would include creating a statewide real data registry as well as developing afordable hou housing. >> i think we need an all of the above strategy. i this the public is demanding that. yout look the challenge that our housing crisis is creating. we need to build 3.5 million

more homes here in california. we're 48th in the country with the highest number of people with the fewest number of homes. tha disparity is big. we have a third of people in california that are paying 50% more of their income into rent which is significant. so we have bissues. i don't think there's going to be one thing that solves this problem, frankly. i think it's a package of things that involve builore homes, building low income , housind building housing for what we call missing middle. those folks that are middle class, they don't qualify for subsidized housing but they also canor a the current market rate. >> critics of rent control say it seems unfair for property owners and that it will discourage additional development. >> we need nmore housing becaus we do have a supply and demand challeng but we see people with rent

increases that lead to evictions of 50 t80%. that's unattainable for most folks. we have an anti-gauouging bill. it provides some abilityor landlords to increase rents at a reasonable rate but not the 40, 50, 60 prn >> you've blamed tech giants like google and applefo contributing to the housing crisis. you said tech companies should support communities by building housing for the new jobs that they create. but how can tech companies do that if you don't support changes in zoning laws th would allow for additional affordable housing, higher density housing. >> we've already done some

zoning law changes. the question is can zoning law changes alonebi make a difference? if you look at housing production in santa clar coun over the last 40 years it's actually been pretty constant, 5 or 10,000 units a year. to look at that and say we think zoning changes is loan is going to change it, it's an unsustainable thing. to look at that and say zoning's going to solve it, there's no precedt for that. it's much more likely that it's going to take a massive amount of money. if you look at the hire of tths valley, the valley has generatede enormousth but the housing and transportation infrastructure investments that it takes to support k thatd of economic expansion haven't been made. and as a resu, those cost have fallen on communities where

they appear in all the symptoms you talked about, the flight of the missing middle, high housing prices, people losing their h.homes and so fo how do we fix it? i think it's time to go back and make those kinf investments. cities are starting to figure out how to do this too which i think is a really promising sign. >> they haven't necessysily aloved at a very fast pace. >> sure. >> i know you're a coauthor of sb 50, the very controversial housing bill. why do you think that's >> it's necessary because we haven't built enough homes thaou we need to,now? and cities have not issued the number of permits they need to. we have something called rina goals which is cities should be permitting housing at different levels. most cities have not met those goals. >> in paloalto, you oppose sb

50. >> i do. most cities in the south bay have actually done okay on their market targets bu we're way behind on our affordable as far as sb 50 goes, we have actually, like most of then citieshe silicon valley have started to do some of the things insb 50. for example, we eliminated all density restrictions on residentia units in our high density transit corridor. we've moved to reduce parking requirements. we haven't done all the things in sb 50. i don't think any community has. but we've done other things that are not in sb 50. we're actually experimenting with minimums for example. you've got to get past the rhetoric and the scale of the problem because everybody

understands there's a problem. you've got to look at does this policy provide enough incremental value on or above what cities are already doing or gog to do relative to its drawbacks in terms of taking away localflexibility. because we don't implement one sized fits all even within our town. >> what do you think of the points he's making? >>ou i thincommunities have not built enough homes and i think sb 50 strikes at the heart of the issue. we also need to streamne the approval process. i think everyone agrees we have a supply and demand problem. that's what these bills are aiming to do to give us the ability to build more homes. we have t do both things, build homes and guard against displacement. >> i have toask y about this because it's the more affluenti

commun primarily that have come out against sb 50. it does feel that you want to -i not you particular, but that the communities are engaging in sort of a drawbridge mentality to keep out lower income residents. >> i think in any community there's gng to be so people who say we don't need any more housing, we're full. andrs othho think single family houses are immoral. i thinkt m people are in between. our town, nobody wants to be in a drawbridge town. everybody understands the problem. nobody wants to lose social economic diversity. the haest job we have in town to fill right now are cable and linee spl these are the people who climb up the utility poll after the power goes out. we need those people here. >> there are dozens of bills on

the issue of housing. is this a case of over reach by state politicians threatenlig the ab of cities to decide what is best for their communities? >> i can speak to my community. i have mayorib shav supporting the bill, london breed as well. >> the san francisco board of supervisors is against it even though the mayor is thay w it. >> right but she's the mayor of this town and she's. supporti you see a lot of mayors that are supporte of sb 50 and a lot of the other housing legislation. we're responding to what we're seeing in our communities we're seeing the gentrification a displacement happen in very negative way. we've seeing the homelessness vecrease. we ho respond to that. the governor was very clear in terms of what he wanted to do as governor and he was overwhelmingly elected to be governor. that meant building more homes in our communities. >> is it appropriate or is it

over reach? you feel like the sta is coming in and telling you in palo al how toadjust the housing situation in yourtown? >> yeah. we do think's over reach. local planning is sort of the foundation of how do land use and this gets in the way of that. local vot-- everybody's trying solve the problem and i wish that the state would work with us instead of against us. nice to have you both here. >> thank you very much. >> thank you ver♪much. ♪ now to the arts. hailed as the world's longestru ing musical review beach blanket babylon has been delighting audiences for decades. ♪

the sthhow follows snow white as she sings, dances in a quest to find her princecharming. the show has won legions of fans including queen elizabeth who caught a perform in 1983. after 45 years beach bnket babylon will play its last shows at the end of the yea joining me now to mark the end of an era are the show's producer joe silver and shawna mcnulty. i'm so sad to have you here because of this reason, the show is closing. i've seen it numerous times. each time it's differen i'm time it's so much fun. joe, what has it been like fo you now that the news is out about the show's closure this year? >> it's been sad.

i'm going to cry. >> oh. your deceased husband, he started the show. yeah. >> he said that i would know when the time is right for the show to close. and i never thought it would close, but about three years ago i just got this feeling. the sho is amazing, it's great and i really want it to go out on top. so i had to go through a process. and then id reali- >> this is sad. it was sad last week when jo had to make the announcement tous. it was emotional obviously for everybody but it's because t lre's so muche for this beach blanket family. >> jo, we happen to have some kleen

kleenex. shawna you have played snow white for least 13 years. how are you handling the fact that this is the end? >> it's super sad of course and i had my moments of tears. most actors, their shows come to an end. sere is an end date. and we have be lucky to be on this ride, all of us who have been there whether it's one year to 25 to 30 years, we've all had this awesome steady job and n we're experiencing that real moment that mostctors experience. it's the show closing. when the show debuted it as scheduled to run for -- >> six weeks. >> and now here it is the longestmu runningcal review in the world. why do you think it's enjoyed such longevity? >> people askme. it's so good.

i'm not just saying it because it's my show. it's very cever. we have the most talented people. it's vislly beautiful a you know you're going to see something new. >> litelly it changes every night. >> it changes as fast as we find something in the news that we think the audience will think is relevant. it's really all aboutthe audience. they determine what goes in >> is that nerve-racking for you? instructions in the morning and you're told have it ready by tonight? >> we get real t used it. i think that's what makes it so fun and why people stay solong. you don't get bored. it's going to all change. even just lines or numbers. that's what makes it really fun and unique. >> do you the performers get a chance to be part of the creative process? >> yeah. they listen to our ideas.

do listen. it is a book show. >> but it's not acy democ >> that's what she used to say. this is not a democracy. we love hearing their ideas because they come up with great stuff. we love hearing ideas from everyone. we definitely write the show an a book show. >> yeah. at least you're a little more humane about the process.de silver used to just -- >> usually with val diamond he would go up to her right before the sh is going to start and say, here, i want this in, put it in herand and she'd write it in her hand and then he'd walk away and she'd have to go out on stage looking at the notes on her hand. but he would never give anybody anything that he did not think they'd be able to do. >> that's a testament to the

>> we have the best performers in the world. >> we have fun. the audience refution is to listen to. i meantimes we get a big groan. we love a big groan. any reaction is areat reaction. >> the show has toured to london, vegas, theademy awards, queen elizabeth has seen it. memories our favorite from the show? >> when the queen came. we took the to london, everything. when i first saw the show in my life and met steve silver, everything has been fabulous. i can't say there's bene bad day. >> i think for me i was here when prince charles a camilla parker bowles came. that was incredible. it was an experience. jo and kenny redid the whole show. we had pesspecial numbers. it was really exciting.

>> what will you miss most? >> the people, the family. of course the show b it i this beach blanket family. we're used to it being there. they're all so close. >> you've become like family afte these years. it's a show that's given performers great benefits unheard of really in the industry, health benefits, paid vacation, health care, retirement. jo, for youhat do you think the legacy of the show will be? >> i hope thatverybody remembers it's a fabulous show. >> it's more than just a fabulous show. it's an icon. >> uniquely san francisco. ity rea is something that you can only get here. i think people will always remember that crazyany show with big hats and miss it dearly and think back to all the fun memories. >> what's going to happen to the

hats after the show ends? >> i own all of them. of course we can't just let it go. >> no. >> we're looking at places like a museum or something. we'll figure it out. we'll have an exhibit. hopefully it will be very successful and we can sen it out to go to different places. >> the hats are so special. >> the props, everything. >> you're going to make me cry. >> i know, ikn w. i shouldn't be doing this. >> well good luck to yout >> thank you so much. >> it is such a beloved show in he bay area. nice to haveu here. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. i'm sure you'll see it again. >> of course. i would not let the show end without seeing it again. thank you. and that will do it for us. beach blanket babylon runs wednesdays through ss at club fugazi in san francisco.

tickets are still available at n beachtbabylon.com. i'm thuy vu. thank you for joining u ♪

robert:a standoff over congressional oversight. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washingtonee" president trump: in the history of our country, there has never been a president that's been more transparent than me or t trump administration. robert: an emboldened president slams the door on congress. president trump: we're fighting all the subpoenas. robert: house democrats won't back down, demanding answers on struction and the president's finances. >> the way we step up is to begin impeachment proceedings. robert: and joe biden jumps>> i. if we give donald trump eight years in the white house, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. robert: will democally behind the former v.p.? or look to a new generation? answers and anasis next.